


The Works of Rosenriot

by NyamiRose



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 8,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23636803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyamiRose/pseuds/NyamiRose
Summary: Poetry I've written, and performed. In order of date written.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. Red, White, and Blue

I grew up and was raised to love the country I was in  
That gave me comfort, freedom and rights, I saw then  
A beautiful country, lawful, lovely and free  
And for a while I thought nothing would take that from me

But then I saw our veterans lying in our streets  
Begging for clothes, just for something to eat  
Why can’t we even agree on basic human rights?  
Would rather turn a debate into a verbal cage fight  
When our children would rather die than face the hurt in their hearts  
Caused by the way of life we created, it starts  
The decay of a country I loved with all my soul  
That now forgets what was written years ago on that scroll

There is no good, no brotherhood  
From sea to shining sea  
Red waves of blood spilled by the gun  
Of the madman we conceived  
Rather kill those who aren’t like us  
Rather scream, punch and then we cuss  
Till we get what we want  
Get out of our way  
We’ll blow your ass up if you got something to say

Building up walls like there ain’t no tomorrow  
With prejudice and ethics that all seem borrowed  
From a time long before I even existed  
A time that seems so evil and twisted  
Are we going forward or 100 steps back?  
For the first time in forever, freedom seems to be what we lack  
No longer are we the home of the brave  
Cause progress takes that, but progress seems to be in a grave

What’s happening? What’s happening?  
Are we losing our minds?  
What? Bombs and bloody bodies aren't enough of a sign?  
I tell myself I love this country but how can that be  
When all it wants to do it take my rights away from me?  
I’m a faggot! I’m a faggot! That’s what they all say  
A bisexual, sick-in-the-head bitch who needs to go away  
I fear for my life with every step I take  
A kind of fear and anxiety that makes my bones ache  
Hiding who I am, it breaks me down  
Cause acts against people like me seem to abound

You want to take me out? Me and my kind?  
The bigoted wishes of a small, closed mind  
Wake up! Wake up!  
If you do this, we won’t be ourselves anymore  
We’ll be the scar on this Earth, a country to abhor  
Am I the only sane one left? Can you not really see?  
We’re gonna go down on the wrong side of history

But I guess now I have to be honest  
I have hope in my heart  
And I’ll make it a promise  
That this country doesn’t end up the way it looks in my nightmares  
A country that makes me cry, makes me so scared

This is the oath we make to you  
We’re gonna save you, save you  
Red, white and blue


	2. Fake News

I tell you that I am sick  
That I always have been  
And always will be  
I tell you that I fear everything  
And can’t think in any colors but black and white  
That I need medication, daily  
That I need support, always  
And yet you cover your ears and scream “fake news”

I tell you I’ve been hurt  
That it was by a man you shook hands with and trusted  
That you endorsed and thought was good for me  
I tell you I was violated  
Held down and tied up  
That I need justice, but can’t  
That I need you to believe me, please  
And yet you cover your ears and scream “fake news”

I tell you I fear for you  
You’re watching all the wrong channels  
You’re engaging in all these bad shows  
You’re older and can be easily influenced  
So I warn you it’s unhealthy  
They stress you out, always  
They make you angry, constantly  
And yet you cover your ears and scream “fake news”

I tell you I’m scared  
And sadly, I’m scared of you  
I fear pots and pans barraging me  
Their hammering on my head  
You got close, once  
And so I fear you, now  
And yet you cover your ears and scream “fake news”


	3. Fuck the Politicians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This poem was written in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting.

Fuck the politicians who care not for what has transpired  
Who think the 2nd Amendment is unyielding and wholly desired  
They tell us to give thoughts and prayers, to live by the Holy Book  
But they also told us there would never be another Sandy Hook  
So here we are at Parkland, yet another school shooting  
With all these fucking senators and governors polluting  
The debate we need to have with “mental illness” and #walkupnotout  
So they can profit off another dozen students killed, no doubt

Fuck the politicians voted in by those who praise the gun  
Fuck them too for thinking that they could shun  
And shame the victims- they are not crisis actors  
They are people who will fight you for which you did not factor  
They have a right to exist more than your AR-15  
Don't call our walkouts or protests any more obscene  
Than bloodied bodies on the floor in a place of education  
Sit down and shut up- We want to save the children of this nation

Fuck the politicians voted in by the parents of the dead  
But those parents shouldn't have had to lose someone to know that this should end  
This fight should’ve been won 19 years before  
When Harris and Klebold started a bloody schoolyard war  
With bombs and assault rifles- weapons of mass destruction  
A massacre beyond what Bush could have dreamed- the ultimate abduction  
Of children’s lives that should have been innocent and clean  
But will the future be different? That remains to be seen.

Fuck the politicians who love to betray  
Who fight for blood money given by the NRA  
They want to rule this nation forever but who will they govern  
If they kill our future citizens because they’re so stubborn?  
Stubborn? No, I’m sorry. I meant ‘homicidal’  
What makes them better than the shooter when they would just stand idle?  
There’s something I want from these fucking politicians  
Considering it if you will, what should be our mission  
I only have one wish, call me crazy, but that’s a fact  
I want my friends to graduate with their lives and limbs intact.


	4. The Girl

I was stupid, it was pretty apparent.  
And it was pretty apparent, that you had a crush on me  
But I couldn’t accept- couldn’t believe- a nice boy like you would like me  
So when she asked, I let her pursue you  
She wanted you  
I think I needed you  
I’m glad that your “relationship” is over  
Still, I guess I’m not as smart as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
Okay, I’ll admit, she’s cute  
Probably, especially to you  
(Putting your dick in a person usually helps with that)  
She’s skinnier-- duh  
Her hair is in the style I wanted, but not the color  
He skin is clearer, but not as soft  
But you’ll never know that  
Because I’m not as attractive as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
She scares me  
She’s always been violent  
Remember that time she threw a chair at the wall?  
Cause she lost at Mario Kart?  
You know, she frightens me to the point I have to leave the room she’s in  
Even if you’re in that room too  
I thought that fact would be enough for you to realize  
She’s an abusive person  
And you shouldn't have to put up with her like I did  
But I guess you don’t think I’m as sane as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
She’s always one step ahead  
She always asks you to go to the movies first  
Always invites you to all her parties before I can invite you to mine  
She always gets to spend more time with you  
That’s more time that she could hurt you  
Maybe I'm just unlucky  
Or maybe evil always prevails  
But it seems I’m not as important as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
I tried to protect you, but I wonder if I can anymore  
You try to stay neutral, and I admire that  
But you don’t realize you hurt me when you do  
It makes me feel like you don’t believe me  
When you go on in life as if you’d never heard my concerns  
I’ve told you them all so many times  
So I know I’m not as valued as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
In a way, I wish she’d hurt you now  
So you’d understand and believe me  
All at once and in an instant  
But instead I’m stressed and concerned, waiting  
For the inevitable betrayal she will inflict upon you  
I’m not the first person she’s hurt  
And you will not be the last  
But you cling to the 50% of the time that she’s a slightly “good person”  
Instead of facing the other half of the time that she spends with  
insults,  
glares,  
judgments,  
manipulations,  
violence  
and the self-loathing she takes out on others  
But it seems that I’m not as nice as the girl who tried to stab me  
  
Maybe I’m selfish, jealous…  
Maybe I’m in love  
  
I guess it doesn’t matter  
I’m not as good as the girl who tried to stab me


	5. My Passion Is Not Succinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A poem about sexting.

My words flow from my fingers  
A cascade of raw feelings  
Filtered for your comfort  
Yet somehow still numerous and overwhelming

  
I remember.  
I serenaded you with fantasies I would have gone to the ends of the earth to fulfill  
For I never make empty promises of pleasure  
I weaved scenarios of passion like poetry  
I wrote of domination and worship like it was my magnum opus  
I felt the enlightenment of the great masters of art and literature flow through me  
My deepest desires masked by articulate prose  
My innuendo hidden in plain sight

  
And then I went deeper.  
As deep as I wanted you  
No masks now, no hiding!  
You saw past my double entendre  
And you knew they weren’t lies  
They were feather-light teases as you were tied to the bed  
Soft caresses of skin, under a desperate kiss  
They were a blindfold, but you didn’t need to see when you could feel  
You didn’t need your eyes when I could paint a masterpiece in your mind  
Georgia O'Keeffe, as informed by William Shakespeare  
Feminine flora, dictated by a Dark Lady  
I told you of the food on the table, and even without your senses  
Even when you could not see, smell, touch, hear, or taste  
You wanted nothing more than to indulge in a fine meal

  
But here I am now.  
Not as angry as others might have been  
Not as angry as I usually would be  
The dam on my emotions is standing strong  
Nothing is attempting to break loose  
There’s hardly anything to hold back  
But still, I send you my words  
Feather-light, but without a teasing intent  
Soft, but not a caress  
I wanted you to see, to feel  
But more than anything, to understand  
That even in the face of a crushing blow  
Even as I am forced to say goodbye to the future I spun with language  
Even as I am faced with the fact I left fantasies unfilled and made empty promises  
That I am still sending you poetry  
That I am still choosing words like an artist chooses their color palette  
That I am still choosing inflection to invoke an emotion  
I’ve spent paragraph after paragraph telling you this can’t work  
That your decisions have consequences  
When I realize now, I could have said this all in a single sentence  
But I didn’t.  
I couldn’t.  
Because you fell in love with a poet  
And a poet’s passion is not succinct.


	6. The Thought of the High

I stood next to you in that audience  
The stage was filled with beautiful performers  
But I couldn’t stop looking at you  
  
I wanted to hold you  
I’m starving for touch  
Even an accidental brush of your fingertips over my skin would have been enough to make me sob from joy and relief  
  
But what of your knife?  
The one hidden in your sleeve, it’s tip to be thrust into my heart, betraying your tender embrace?  
They say it’s not there  
That not everyone has a blade waiting to inflict a fatal blow.  
But how can I believe that?  
I want to.  
But I’ve been hurt before.  
  
Is it not inevitable  
That underneath any kindness you may extend to me there lies a weapon in which to break my heart and wreck my sanity?  
And is it not possible  
That if you remove my veil of infatuation there is nothing but a desperate broken girl in an adult’s body  
Who’s still naive enough to think a fleeting embrace is enough to keep her shattered pieces together  
Until the next time you greet her with a glance, a smile, a compliment, and an all-too-brief hug?  
  
Aren’t I just desperately craving another person’s touch?  
Aren’t I just addicted to the idea that you’re not such a stranger to me that you’d provide me that contact?  
That someone who I think is so beautiful cares enough to believe the same of me- and to tell me so, at that?  
  
But now, your admiration is a drug  
Your compliments and reassurances only serve to tempt me with a hit I can’t afford  
A second of you holding me close becomes weeks of torture once we part  
  
Avoiding you hurts, but perhaps I need such abstinence.  
Because I can’t even handle the thought of the high I get with you.


	7. Holy Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in response to the recent Christchurch mosque shootings.   
> Also references the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, and the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting in 2008.   
> I personally remember the latter, clear as day.

Death in the church, and blood on the steeple  
Open the doors and see all the people  
Dead on the floor, and too soon heaven-bound  
Cause humanity breeds hate on this holy ground

Sacrilege of the synagogue, stains on the Torah  
Devout laid to rest, graves adorned in flora  
A man consumed with hate for the “other”  
And now too many dead, from grandson to mother

Massacre in the mosque, blood splatters the Quran  
But politicians think it’s deserved so it just keeps going on  
Lives lost to hate, livestreamed for fame  
And now somehow there’s too many people to blame

These people were just praying and now they’re just gone  
Hearts stopped beating half-way through hopes, chants, and song  
I may not have faith, but I still have a creed  
People should be able to worship without having to bleed


	8. Bricks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

I’ve been told Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick at Stonewall.  
A gorgeous black woman, handed to her parents with a damning error on her birth certificate.  
She started wearing dresses at the age of 5  
And worn shame soon after.  
Her bullies told her to die.  
Her mother told her that being homosexual was to be "lower than a dog”.  
She escaped to New York City at 18, only to be harassed constantly by police  
Who checked under her dress to make sure she was allowed to wear it.  
A sexual assault not unlike the kind she experienced in her youth  
Except this time it was government sanctioned.  
I’ve been told Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick at Stonewall.

I’ve been told Sylvia Rivera threw the first brick at Stonewall.  
A beautiful latina born with the same mistake on a slip of paper that would haunt her forever  
Her mother commited suicide when she was just 3 years old.  
Later, her grandmother kicked her onto the streets for her femininity.  
She found a new family in New York City, in activism and her friend, Marsha P. Johnson.  
At 22 she took to the stage at gay power rally and said “y'all better quiet down”  
Not that she could have ever been silenced by anything other than Death itself.  
I’ve been told Sylvia Rivera threw the first brick at Stonewall.

I’ve been told Stormé DeLarverie threw the first brick at Stonewall.  
Her mother was black, and her father was white.  
She did not have any error on her birth certificate.  
Her birth was illegal. Her skin bore proof of the crime committed.  
There was no birth certificate.  
She was everything that America would rather not exist:  
A biracial. Lesbian. Butch. Drag king.  
Stonewall veterans describe “a typical New York butch” injured from a police baton to the head.  
She struggled against the officers with blood streaming down her face and yelled to the onlookers:  
"Why don't you do something?"  
And with those words, a revolution began.  
I’ve been told Stormé DeLarverie threw the first brick at Stonewall.

I’m here to tell you.  
It doesn’t matter who threw the first brick at Stonewall.  
It matters that a second brick was thrown.  
And a third.  
And a fourth.  
And another. And another.  
It matters that we never stop throwing bricks.  
Our fight was started with the smash of glass  
And we did not cower. We did not flee. We kept on fighting.  
And the fight is not over.

I will fight.  
I refuse to go back into the closet.  
I will kiss my lovers between their thighs and when I rise back up I will call them the name and pronoun they are  
Even when it’s not the name or pronoun on their birth certificate.  
_Especially_ when it’s not the name or pronoun on their birth certificate.  
I will patron the places we are welcome  
And protest those that donate their profits to our destruction.  
I will fight for our stories to be taught in schools  
Not because it is queer history, but because it is human history.  
I will fight for the rights of our trans community to not be killed as punishment for their crime of simply being alive.  
I will fight so that one day my visibility is not seen as "too political" or "sexually obscene" or "inappropriate for children".  
I will fight so that future generations can look back at our lifetimes  
And say they have their rights because we resisted.

I will not cower.  
I will not flee.  
I will never stop fighting.

I will throw bricks.


	9. The Thought of the High (Five Months Wiser Redux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems written in the moment often reflect raw emotion, but not always reality. Five months later, I've gained a clearer perspective.
> 
> This poem was originally written out of my concern for a crush hurting me if I proclaimed my feelings. Now, I realize, I was actually concerned I'd hurt them.

I stood next to you in that audience  
The stage was filled with beautiful performers  
But I couldn’t stop looking at you

I wanted to hold you  
I’m starving for touch  
Even an accidental brush of your fingertips over my skin would have been enough to make me whimper in joy and relief.  
But...

I’ve never had good role models for love.  
For compassion. Nor contentment.  
I’d fear scarring you. Unintentionally, but in ways that could never heal.  
Running away from the temptation is preferable to the risk of having to watch your heart shatter at my words.  
I’d hate for that spark in your eyes to become as dim as mine.

And so I just stood there.  
I could have touched you, called your attention and told you my feelings.  
But I was silent. And I was still.  
I hoped for everything, but did nothing.  
Because, in the end, is it not possible  
That if you remove my veil of infatuation there is nothing but a desperate broken girl in an adult’s body  
Who’s still naive enough to think a fleeting embrace will keep her shattered pieces together  
Until the next time you greet her with a glance, a smile, a compliment, and an all-too-brief hug?  
Because, in the end, is it not possible  
That I am a fool?

Aren’t I just desperately craving another person’s touch?  
Aren’t I just addicted to the idea that you’re not such a stranger to me that you’d provide me that contact?  
That someone who I think is so beautiful cares enough to believe the same of me- and to tell me so, at that?

But now, your admiration is a drug  
Your compliments and reassurances only serve to tempt me with a hit I can’t afford  
If you had said or done what I couldn't, surely I would have overdosed.  
Avoiding you hurts, but perhaps I need such abstinence.  
Because I can’t even handle the thought of the high that I get with you.


	10. Silence Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: Descriptions of violence, specifically body horror/torture

Silence me!  
Rip the dictionary I appropriate for my speech out of my hands  
And beat my skull in with it  
Destroy my misfiring synapses and rid me of my chemical imbalance  
Revel in the sight of my depraved mind splattered on the sidewalk  
And rejoice for the new era of healing you’ve heralded

Silence me!  
Don’t allow me to even open my mouth  
My words will rot you from the inside  
Rip the skin off your flesh  
And tear your flesh from your bones  
Then crush your bones to dust  
Save yourself- save everyone!

Silence me!  
Rip my throat out of my neck  
Stomp it into the ground  
Chop it up  
Then throw it into the fire  
And dance around the ashes in celebration of ending my deadly curse

Silence me!  
Pry my jaw open and pour wax down my throat  
Until I choke and drown in the sea of hurt I’ve caused others  
Don’t stop until I feel the pain I’ve caused clenching around my neck  
Nails piercing my windpipe and severing my jugular vein  
Choking every unintentional insult and offhand remark out of me  
Allow a lifetime of misused words to flow out my wounds  
To find peace outside my exsanguinated corpse

Silence me!  
I have never been capable of articulate speech  
I’ve spoken for days only to never reach my point  
And I didn’t stop when your ears started to bleed  
Instead I tried to heal you with more words!

Silence me!  
On stage I commit atrocities  
No word has ever been uttered from these lips that has benefited another soul  
Assassinate me before I can even breathe into the mic  
Before I can sow seeds of doubt  
Before I can murder you with my good intentions  
Before I commit genocide with my voice.

Silence me!  
Silence me!  
Why aren’t you silencing me?!


	11. Devotion (or, Why Loving Her is Better Than Any Religion)

This slick at the crux of my thighs is a fountain of allegiance that will never run dry under the thought of her touch.  
I would gladly be cast out of Eden to taste the forbidden fruit between her legs.  
I kneel at her alter and I am anointed in her juices.  
Why would I desire to taste the body of Christ, when she is so much more satisfying?   
The verses of holy scripture have no impact compared to the power her words have on me.  
I am much more likely to see the light in the mercy she will bring me, than seated before a pulpit.  
There’s no need for a choir when she can conduct me like a symphony.  
With her fingers she plays my senses like organ keys  
Evoking the exact sounds she wants to hear from my lips  
Discovering new octaves and old ones lost to time.  
I can pray for mercy, I can beg for more, I can call out for every deity man has ever created  
But only she will be there  
Hands on my hips, her own rocking to and fro  
Answering every prayer a god never could.

My body is not a temple.  
It is not pure, innocent, or clean.  
Full of sapphic thoughts and constantly planning even more hedonism.  
This bed is our confessional booth, but I have never entered with my soul burdened by sin  
In her arms I feel no shame.  
Only love.  
They say “God is good”  
But _she_ is better.


	12. Eve (A Poem for Young Female Activists)

Genesis.  
What a scam.  
A lie that has lasted for centuries.  
Arguably the world's most classic, widely-referenced and well-known story of a young woman rebelling against authority to achieve knowledge and freedom   
And yet she was painted as the sinner.

How powerful that story is.   
How disgustingly relevant.  
For now, every woman is a sinner whenever she resists.  
Whenever she questions the conventions around her.  
Whenever she takes action.  
Whenever she fights the status quo.  
Whenever a woman defies man and God to value herself.

There’s an Eve in all of us.  
Eve is in Emma.  
Greta.  
Jazz.  
Mari.  
Malala.

They all bite from the fruit of enlightenment just as Eve did.  
No wonder so many men heckle and hate.  
No wonder so many men foam at the mouth at the mere mention of their names.  
No wonder so many men spew vile poison in the presence of strong young women.

They’ve been taught to mourn Eden.  
To mourn ignorance.  
To mourn servitude.  
To mourn the choices of Eve.

Just think… what all could have been different if Eve had been the one to tell her own story.

My fellow Eves.  
Do not let anyone but you tell your own story. 

Get writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emma = Emma Gonzalez. 19. Parkland shooting survivor and gun control activist.  
> Greta = Greta Thunberg. 16. Swedish climate change activist who spoke at the UN.  
> Jazz = Jazz Jennings. 18. Transwoman and trans rights activist, who co-wrote a children's book about trans issues.  
> Mari = Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny. 12. Resident of Flint, Michigan, aka "Little Miss Flint", an advocate for clean water.  
> Malala = Malala Yousafzai. 22. Pakistani Nobel Prize Winner, who survived after being shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating for women's literacy.


	13. Apocalypse Now

I have never required a holy book to tell me how my world shall end.  
No end times prophecy nor fairytale can compare to my reality.  
I know my fate.

My mind is famine.  
It starves me of the love I need.  
Darkness and doubt slither their way into kindness like worms  
But I require sustenance, and so I take a bite regardless   
Every emotion known to be juicy and sweet hits my tongue and tastes of nothing but dirt and ash  
The shortage or the abundance of savory emotions in the world means nothing if it hurts when I sink my teeth into them,  
If I cannot benefit from love but am doomed to wither away without it.

My mind is pestilence.  
It is wrought with disease and illness.  
Intrusive thoughts creep into my mind like small daily doses of poison  
Perhaps they won’t kill me today, but I feel it spreading it my system  
And like every diseased person, I know my time on this earth is short.  
There’s treatments of all sorts, but nothing ever truly works.  
It’s always there, lurking, ready to mutate into something no medication or therapy can defeat.  
And no surgery exists to rid my brain of runaway toxic contemplation.

My mind is war.  
Constant struggle and lasting trauma.  
What could have been fertile soil is naught but a minefield.  
I’ve been told I should know my enemy, but I fail to know myself  
And so this destruction will go on inside  
My skin, my hair and my overall health  
Now innocent bystanders turned casualties of an unending internal conflict

My mind is death.  
It wants nothing more than to destroy the body it inhabits.  
It would rather cease to exist than exist in my form.  
It tries to cut my life short every day.  
It’s thought of ways to kill me that serial killers and horror authors alike   
Would give their own souls to lay claim to.

I have never required a holy book to tell me how my world shall end.  
No end times prophecy nor fairytale can compare to my reality.  
I fight my fate.


	14. Say Their Name

I’ve never called Adolf Hitler, “Heike”.  
I’ve never called Hitler “she”.  
I’ve never called Hitler “it”.

Calling people by their name is not a sign of respect.  
I don’t respect Hitler one bit.  
You can quote me on that.  
I just call Hitler, “Hitler”, “he”, “nazi” and “genocidal bastard” because that’s who he was.

So why do so many people want a fucking cookie for calling a trans person their name and pronoun?

You think you can’t be transphobic?  
Because you said their name?  
Because you said “their” as a singular pronoun?

Misgendering and deadnaming are acts of discrimation exclusive to the trans community.  
What? You want a medal? For- what was that again- not discriminating?  
What shit is that?

Do racists get medals or cookies or credit when they say;  
“Well, I reckon I don’t want her havin’ equal rights, but I called Shontelle by her name, so I can’t be a racist”  
No!   
They get called out for their bigotry, just like they deserve.

“Oh but Rose,” you say,  
“Trans issues are so new, how can I possibly be expected to adapt to all these new concepts?”  
Well…

They aren’t new!  
Hitler ordered the burning of books  
Including books published by the Institute of Sex Research, in 1933.  
That Institude advocated for gay rights and published articles on transexualism  
And even offered some of the first surgeries and hormone therapies to assist in transition.  
In 1933!!

Imagine how different the world would be if those books hadn’t been burned!  
If the Institute's administrator, Kurt Hiller, hadn’t been sent to a concentration camp!  
If the Institute hadn’t become a bombed and burned ruin of progress by the end of the war!  
Decades of trans research lost to time, never to recovered,  
Because one man thought anyone who he didn’t approve of deserved to die   
And managed to convince others to believe him!

And yet.   
I still call that man his name.  
Adolf Hitler. He/him/his pronouns.

It’s not a sign of respect.   
It’s not even a sign you want that person to live or die peacefully.

It is the bare minimum requirement of being a half-decent human being.

You don’t get a cookie.


	15. Known

You told me “I don’t feel like anyone actually knows you”  
And that tipsy confession hit me like a brick to my face.  
Because… how could you not know me?  
I walk into that bar and I feel so extremely vulnerable   
Like all my layers are peeled back   
And all the worst parts of my personality are on display.  
Truth is, all this time, I just believed everyone there knew me so well   
That they loathed everything about me  
But tolerated my patronage because they had bills to pay.  
No judgment, I worked retail, I know that strategy too well.

But as I went home and thought about your words,  
The phrasing bouncing around in my head  
I found myself disturbed by the fact that I was more upset you didn’t know me   
Than by the assumption I had held prior:  
That you hated me.

Why was I more comfortable being hated, I wondered.  
It didn’t take long to come to the answer:  
It’s because hate is all I’ve ever known

I’m comfortable being hated  
Being alone   
Being isolated   
Being the outcast   
So much so, that things like love and being cared for   
Or even just the potential for love or care to happen  
Makes me shake in fear  
Makes my vision narrow  
Makes my mind cloud  
Makes my lungs clench  
Makes my heart thump so strong against my ribcage I fear it might shatter.  
I can already see that love being used to manipulate me,  
I can already see it turning to hate  
To harsh words that haunt me  
To memories that keep me up at night  
To lacerations on my body that fade into scars on my mind.

Hate is what I know best.  
I know it better than a mother’s love  
Or a father’s wisdom  
I know hate more intimately than I know a warm embrace or reassuring words.

But I thought I was doing better.  
I was facing the discomfort of being in a room full of future lost love head on.  
I said hello to everyone, a smile on my face  
Admiration, however awkward, radiating from me, so then…  
You knew me, right?

But now I realize I’ve mastered a very specific skill that no one should really ever master.

And that’s the ability to speak forever and never be known   
I can chat about any topic, big or small   
I can talk to you about all the things that irked me that day or that I loved that day  
I can build you up until you blush bright red  
Or talk about myself without ever resorting to even a white lie.  
You ask me about my day  
And I tell you about it for the next hour  
And yet the whole time, never let my guard down  
Never reveal too much that it could be used against me   
Never be truly vulnerable   
Or even relatable.

But ask me about my best friend who tried to stab me when I tried to stop her from killing herself.

Ask me about the boy I tried to save from suffering as I did, only to worry myself into the open bed of a mental hospital- not once, but twice.

Ask me about the man I thought I loved so much that I gave him my virginity, only for him to pressure me for more and more every night after, at the threat of violence.

Ask me about the times I cried myself to sleep wishing I could cut out my own womb so that no one could ever violate it again.

Ask me about the times my dad charged at me because we differed in opinion and my mom just stood by and watched.

Ask me about the times I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in for my dad to finally hit me hard enough it left marks so that I could actually call the police on him.

Ask me about the bullies who made me consider suicide so often, I’ve wanted death longer than I wanted to be alive.

Ask me about all the years I spent denying who I was, learning to be like everyone else so that I wasn’t weird enough to be punished or isolated from my peers.

Ask me about all the time I spent erasing myself so that I was no longer a person, but instead clay to be molded into the image of the hateful people who laid their hands on me.

Ask me about the guilt I feel when all the people in my present are paying for the sins of the abusers in my past, all of them having to navigate my trauma to even see a glimpse past the walls I’ve built to keep the pain out.

Ask me how it feels when every time I look in the mirror I have to deal with the fact that I am such a terrible person that I not only wasn’t good enough for my first family but I wasn’t good enough for my second one either.

Ask me any of those questions and that is when I finally have nothing to say.

And as I realized all this,  
I was forced to sit in my sadness,   
In my silence,  
In my pain,  
In my truth:  
That no one actually knows me.


	16. Dear Exclusionists

Dear Exclusionists,

Y’all really think it matters, don’t you?  
Our government could announce tommorrow that they’re going to “execute all of the faggots”  
And you all would just debate on Twitter about what that means:  
“Uh wait, do they mean the cis gay faggots? Or all the masculine presenting faggots? Surely this doesn’t include the nonbinary faggots?”  
But the fact is that no one who wants us dead   
Cares about policing words nearly as much as you do.  
The moment our oppressors come after the “faggots”,  
As soon as they decide they want their cisgender heterosexual paradise   
To rise from the ashes of our burnt bodies  
Anyone who’s ever even contemplated that they might be attracted to the same gender  
Anyone who’s ever worn clothes outside their gender and thought they looked hot in that one selfie they never had the empowerment to post  
Anyone who’s ever deviated from the cisstraight norm for even a single second of their lives  
Is going to be on the chopping block, faggot or not,  
And it’s not going to matter to you because you don’t think they exist.  
Militia will burst down your door and drag you out kicking and screaming  
They’ll handcuff you to a pansexual  
They’ll put you in a cell with an asexual demiromantic   
They’ll drag you out into the prison courtyard and kneel you down before a wall   
Between a he/him lesbian and non-dysphoric enby  
And you can bitch and complain all you want about how you think those identities don’t exist  
About how they aren’t worthy of being martyrs for the cause  
But it’s not going to matter because at the end of the day   
When those soldiers squeeze their triggers and that bullet pierces your brain  
Everyone’s blood is going to look the same splattered across that wall.

And I would hope  
That in the seconds before you hear the telltale click of a gun being cocked  
That you would consider that maybe, just maybe  
All the efforts you made policing identities within your own community was a waste  
That all your time spent pushing the “transtrenders” and “fake bisexuals” out of your safe spaces   
Could have been better spent protecting all of those oppressed   
By the status quo of a cisnormative heteronormative world  
That maybe the biggest threat was coming from the outside all along   
Just like the people you harrassed for not being enough or being too much always said it was.

In the seconds before you die for the community you squandered with hate  
I’d hope you realize that.

But honestly? Even moreso:  
I hope you realize way before it ever comes to any scenario that extreme.


	17. Perfect

“She was the perfect victim”  
That’s what the TV said  
About the case gone cold as her body lying in those woods  
The case as cold as the one who had committed the crime  
But I doubted that claim.

I’d heard the praise so often:  
The “perfect victim”, with a name forgotten  
Clothes ripped and no ID,   
Alcohol in the bloodstream,   
Cries unheard as she lay just off the beaten path.  
The “perfect crime”, a misnomer they used in the papers  
Now known far and wide, but alas  
There’s no justice in sight.

But what about any of that is “perfect”?  
I call bullshit!

Tell me what is perfect about being called a slut when you screamed “no”  
Tell me what is perfect about a system that elects rapists to our highest courts  
Tell me what is perfect about a society with vitriol spilling from its fingertips  
Defending everyone but the ones most hurt

If she wore a skirt too short, she was a hoe  
But if she wore a skirt too long, she was a prude   
And if she got a glass of water at the bar, she just need him to loosen her up  
But if she got a shot, she was asking for it

And if he was a troublemaker, then that priest just wanted to heal him  
But if he was a well behaved alter boy, then that priest just wanted to reward him

And if he was a real man, his wife couldn’t lay a finger on him  
But if he was a real man, he’d be the one laying a finger on her

And if she was hot and talented, the knife to her girlfriend’s face is frankly, forgivable  
And if he was hot and talented, his boyfriend's cries of protest are rendered hollow

And if she couldn’t say no, then she should have screamed  
And if she couldn’t scream, then she should have fought back  
And if she couldn’t fight back, then she shouldn’t have got caught  
And if she didn't want to get caught, then she should have armed herself  
And if she had armed herself, she could have shot the bastard  
But if she had shot the bastard, she could end up on trial for murder  
But if she hadn’t shot the bastard then it would be  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
She said  
He said  
And he would still get away with it   
Because every victim is perfect  
But never more perfect than their abuser.

And so I wish you would stop thinking me broken   
In the same breath you call me and those like me  
The “perfect victim” of the “perfect crime”.


	18. Olivia

“I feel helpless”  
She said, as I sat there, ancient rivers of grief flowing down my face when they should have run dry years ago  
“I’m watching you rinse and repeat. It’s like you’re in a cycle.”  
Her desperation was evident.  
And it was familiar.

“My mother thinks so too,” I replied, revealing just how much of a cycle I was really in  
Exposing how deep my rabbit hole of repetition and trauma goes.

Mother used to stand in my room in the doorframe,   
As far as she could be away from me while still being there for me  
Like if she got too close she’d be caught in my gravitational pull, and she’d never get free.  
“Don’t you realize how hard this is for us?! For me?! We’ve given you everything. What more do you want?”  
My mother would lament.  
Eventually I stopped replying when she got this way-  
When she asked a question but didn’t want an honest answer.  
Besides.  
The answer was in space between us.  
I wanted her to enter my room when I wasn’t crying.  
But by the time I realized that, the space between us could not be bridged by 10 steps and a hug.  
That time had long since passed.

And so there I was. Having the same argument I had with my mother, but this time with the woman I love.  
I’d say Sigmund Freud was damn near ejaculating at the exchange but honestly if he’s been paying any attention to my life his corpse has already had multiple orgasms.  
Oh the projection!   
Oh the cycle of trying to feel love and being perceived too needy and broken to deserve it.  
I sank back in my seat, and accepted my fate.

“I feel helpless.” She says again.   
“I worry that it's too much for you. I can tap out whenever I want. But you live in this. And I don't want that for you.”

And in that moment, the cycle was broken.  
She was the first person to see that I was in a cycle, who listened when I explained why,   
and recognized that of all the ways my pain hurts others, it hurts me most.   
She saw my pain and didn’t make it about her.   
My pain wasn’t a burden.  
I wasn’t a burden.

It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  
I. was. loved.  
And I felt helpless to accept it.

But I’m trying anyways.


	19. Til It Happens to You

My ex-boyfriend, Jeremy Quigly, raped me.  
Sexual and emotionally abused me.  
The first time I spoke my truth  
To my best friend and most woke person I knew at the time  
Her response was  
“Are you sure you’re not confused?”

My mother asked something similar, when I told her.  
So did my next best friend, when I told him.  
So did the performers I wanted nothing more than to be like  
When their fellow performers told them.

You so-called “proud feminists”, you #staywoke pretenders  
You change your profile pictures to black  
Wear pussy hats to Women’s Marches  
Strip your stockings from your leg in an act of reclamation  
You declare yourselves pro-choice  
But apparently you meant the choice to believe survivors only when it’s convenient for you

You think coming out of the closet means your never have to come out as ignorant  
You advocate for bodily autonomy while your friends lose theirs to the abusers you aren’t willing to punish  
You decorate your house in sapphic depictions and genitalia so you have something to look at other than the survivors screaming at you to take action  
You speak of hypothetical victims to silence the real victims trying to tell you their truths  
You send get well cards while driving a knife deeper and deeper into the wound

You’ve taken off the wigs, makeup, tape and heels  
And still, I have never seen anyone else more two faced

And so, here I am, yet again.  
In the unenviable position of being able to wish you nothing but love  
For I couldn’t live with myself if I wished my pain on you  
But you will never understand how much your inaction hurts until it happens to you.


	20. Silence Me (Seven Months Wiser Redux)

Silence me!  
That’s what you want isn’t it?  
You hear me call out the mothers  
You hear me call out the fathers  
You hear me call out the rapists  
The exclusionists, the meninists,   
And the structures that defend them  
You hear me call out the face you covered in glitter to disguise the rot inside  
And you want nothing more than to silence me!  
But I’ve felt what it’s like to build people up   
And I’ve felt what’s it like to tear structures down  
I’ve created ripples with my rhymes and I have flooded dams with my stanzas  
And I will never give that up  
You can cut out my tongue and I will still have my fingers and a pen to write with  
And you can cut off my fingers and I will learn to write with a pen between my toes   
And you can take my pen and I will make ink of my blood  
You can cut off my all my limbs one by one  
And I will write with a brush of my hair held between my teeth  
Dipped in the conviction you doubt  
And by the time you’ve taken away every method for me to speak   
You will have no one to trample and you will drown in me  
You drove me to stand on stage and speak my truth  
Truth is- you wanted me to be confident, I am   
You wanted me to be stronger, I am  
You wanted me to believe in myself, I do  
You’re just mad that it’s all pointed at you  
But until the time you are ready to murder me for my words on this stage itself   
You will never silence me.


	21. Space

You said you need space.  
We have over 2000 miles of space and I loathe each and every one of them.  
I loathe that I can’t hold you when you cry  
Or when you smile  
I loathe that you shake and tremble on the floor as the world goes to shit in ways you never thought would happen  
And I can’t be there to teach you how to ground yourself,   
To hold your hand until it passes,   
To get you a glass of water as you try to breathe steadily again  
Or even put a blanket over you so you aren’t just a body on the floor if nothing else works.  
I want to be so close to you I can beat your anxiety in its face, I can kick your panic in the gut, I can throw your pain into a ditch and stomp this goddamn virus into the curb.  
But most of all I wish I didn’t feel like I was looking in a mirror.  
I’m finally happy.  
I’m finally calm.  
But I remember you feeling helpless when I was in my darkest times  
And as I sit here with you telling me you’re having more panic attacks than you can count  
I'm devastated that I ever put you through anything similar.  
I’d take all the anxiety and panic and pain back if it meant I didn’t have to be as helpless about this as you were with me.  
I wish you didn’t need space.  
We don’t need space.   
We have nothing _but_ space.


	22. Virus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I wrote this back in April, I was talking about the virus, COVID-19.  
> But it turns out I was talking about the virus that is white supremacy all along.
> 
> Black Lives Matter.

The currency of capitalism is black, brown, poor, and sick bodies.  
It’s only now that you finally get to see that currency exchange hands in real time.  
But don’t be so shocked.  
This has always been the case.

The first African slaves in Colonial America arrived in August of 1619,  
Jumpstarting the economy of the Land of The Free  
That had been running low on the blood of enslaved Native Americans, and Africans owned by the Spanish.  
This country is built on the idea that certain bodies sell better at auction.

Controversial statement but capitalism has never been about just money.  
As this virus spreads you will see how little the dollar and the coin actually mean on their own.  
As this virus spreads you will see how much dollar and coin the human body is worth.  
So much so, that one less dead body a day can mean a pandemic doesn’t exist.  
Because capitalism doesn’t worry about the future  
About where it will store the corpses, about where it will dig mass graves.  
It worries about the future, about how stocks will rise like black bodies born to hang in trees,  
About how oil prices will drop like AIDs-ridden cadavers into an unmarked grave  
Because capitalism has never been about money-  
It’s been about blood money.  
The paper dollar in your pocket has no worth without red on it.  
We invest and trade with crimson coin, and now the whole world is stained.  
There’s blood on our hands, spreading like a virus.

Don’t. Be. So. Shocked.


End file.
